Cadence, Mentor and Breker working together in defining SOC verification std

VLSI EDA software companies Cadence Design Systems, Mentor Graphics and Breker Verification Systems are working with Accellera Portable Stimulus Working Group in defining a system-on-chip (SoC) verification standard that offers both vertical (intellectual property to SoC) and horizontal (simulation to post-silicon) reuse of stimulus and test.

The collaborative contribution includes:
A concise specification language for use-cases that allows high level abstraction of stimulus and tests, including coverage and results checking
Semantics to allow generation of tests by automation tools in a variety of languages and tool environments with consistent behavior across multiple implementations from simulation through emulation to FPGA and post-silicon
A model-based approach supporting graph-based descriptions of stimulus and test scenarios
A library of predefined utility functions plus support for user-defined functions helpful when generating system-level portable stimulus and tests
For more information on the Portable Stimulus Working Group, visit http://www.accellera.org/activities/working-groups/portable-stimulus

“When we initiated the portable stimulus project within Accellera and offered technology we have in use today, we sought to collaborate with other leading vendors and their technologies to create a standard that would enjoy broad and rapid adoption,” stated John Lenyo, vice president and general manager, Design Verification Technology Division at Mentor Graphics. “We are pleased to see this early collaborative effort to seed the Accellera Portable Stimulus Working Group result in a joint contribution that pulls these technologies together to help accelerate availability of a completed standard.”

“Cadence believes portable stimulus will be the hallmark for the next generation of verification automation,” said Ziv Binyamini, corporate vice president, research and development, Advanced Verification Solutions at Cadence. “Much like our collaboration on OVM and UVM standardization, this joint contribution offers a significant step toward creating a usable standard that can be supported by multiple vendors, and enables Cadence and our customers to leverage the current investments in our technology.”

“Breker has been a vocal supporter of portable stimulus and our customers understand the need and value of our technology,” said Adnan Hamid, CEO and co-founder of Breker Verification Systems. “The development of the standard and our joint contribution offer evidence of portable stimulus’ progress from early adopter to mainstream technology.”